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Session 1
In which ghosts are busted, a naked geezer is found, and a desiccated minstrel is hauled. Story 998:Min:15-21 The party was hastily formed to chase down leads to fill their empty purses. The human, dwarf, and gnome quickly came upon a successful tradesman who was desperate for someone to find his idiot minstrel brother who had run of to the infamous Barrows, a place from which none had ever returned. He said the brother would be easy to recognize by his vacant expression, swept black dyed hair, and overwrought black clothes. Through a little cunning work by Urist "Stumpy" McFortloaf and tragic misunderstanding of the situation by Jon "Hugh" the human, the bemused tradesman offered them a full 80 gold pieces with twenty more thrown in if they promised not to smash his brother's heirloom lute. The party then proceeded to Sybel's to find their fourth. Despite Hugh's Excessive shouting and berating of the clientele of the tavern the Triumphant trio had no luck finding a fellow adventurer until Ellamina "Palomino" the gnome druid vouched for her fellow druid at the bar, a tiefling named Xon who was preoccupied by chatting up Sybel. Despite his seasoned bigotry, Hugh couldn't get Xon to speak the common tongue, though he freely spoke to the others In languages they understood. Eventually the deal was struck and Xon joined the group. The fearsome four agreed after much bickering that they should leave for the dreaded Barrows in the morning. Upon hearing about their trip to the deathtrap, Sybel offered each a glass of her tavern’s “Five Corners." Hugh drank his with gusto, Palomino declined, and Stumpy saved his for later. Xon however downed his and Palimino's then proceeded to puke all over the bar and pass out in one of the bar’s corners. All in all an auspicious start to promising careers. The part slowly gathered after their night of carousing, none more worse off than Xon, woken up by the shouting and manhandling of “Iron” Jon. Once gathered, the party strode boldly forth into the wilderness, only to turn around again once they realized they had no idea where they where going. They asked a guard for direction who gave them an incredibly vague set, and with that they were on their way. The party had planned their trip in such a way that they would be able to stop off at a small thorpe on the way in the hopes of getting more information on the rotting bandits terrorizing the land. Midway through their journey the party saw a group of strange, robed men. After quite some time of sneaking up on them, Hugh stepped on some sticks stood up and said “Hello” to what were later identified to be pain cultists having a wee religious schism over whether or not there was infinite pain in the universe. Several Philosophical arguments and a few perplexing Abyssal statements by the hungover druid convinced the party that this wasn't worth their pressing time and hurried off down the road. As dusk fell, the party came upon an aged farmer who was trying to put the wheel back on his cart. The party quickly volunteered and was rewarded with food and a place to stay the night. Xon insisted on taking watch and sleeping in a tree the entire night, tag-teaming with Palomino’s Mountain lion. On the dawn of the 17th the farmer brings them the rest of the way to town and points them to its leader, they quickly found out that the boil bearing bandits were not in the area, but not before Xon asked the leader something in Demonic before covering it up as a sore throat. The party then left the thorpe and continued to their destination, the barrows from which no one had ever returned. As night fell, the party finally found their way to the barrows and had a drawn out argument as to whether they should go into the hilled grove of unnatural shadow at night or weather they should wait until morning. Caution eventually won and the group made camp far from the edge of the grove that surrounded the barrows. At the fourth watch the alarm was raised as a naked, unkept man had wandered to the edge of the camp standing silent and vacant faced. Urist eventually compelled him with magics to explain, and the man began repeating "the shadows" endlessly. The fighter got fed up with it and bound and gagged the old man until he became silent. The gnome fed the old man some nutritious goodberries before they left him at camp and made their way to the black obelisk at the center of the barrows. What they found was a barren plot of land with a hundred food high slab of featureless black stone, ringed completely with high burial mounds. The party snuck around the edge of the mounds, but the fighter’s greed eventually got the better of him and he stormed atop one of the mounds to look for an easy entrance to one or if there was anything valuable within the ring. At that moment the sides of the black monolith shimmered and three spectral Apparitions appeared, to look upon them was to know fear and both the fighter and the dwarf were rooted where the stood. The Gnome called out that they could be hurt by magics or excessive force of arms and fired upon them. The Tiefling merely readied his magics. The dark forms descended on all save the fighter atop the mount, gripped with fear. The first of the specters went down after much pummeling and a thrown flask of holy water burrowed from the dwarven cleric of !!science!!. The other two took quite a lot of damage from the Tiefling who released thunderwave after thunderwave at them before he was taken down by their icy touch. It was at this point that the Fighter out of weapons pulled free a bear trap and hurled it at the last apparition, latching on for excessive damage and bringing the Ghost to a quick end. In the barrow itself the party found nothing of note but they did find the Minstrel eventually, drained of life, still sitting on the hillock overlooking the sunrise over the black monolith. The party then made their way home, corpse and old man in tow. They were payed by the grieving brother and dropped the old wretch off at the temple. It was the time to relax, with newly fattened purses. Key Events * Met some pain cultists who worshiped Vasilwyn. * Traveled to Larnwick, and talked to Feck the elder. * Defeated some apparitions in the Harllud Barrows. * Returned the corpse of Arthur to his brother Nilus. * The Spring Equinox (and the first day of Spring) happened on Min:20 * Found a gibbering madman and left him in the care of Elleth Salte, parish priestess at the Temple of the Border Wall in Niska. Quotes "For any future murders, you might want to apply the scientific method." - DM Jordan to Connor shit in Infernal- Xon "We're the best at what we do, and what we do isn't very nic...I mean bringing back your brother" - "Hugh" "I mean how do you expect to kill anyone with just one leg?!" - "Hugh" "Iffn' ya don't speak common proper like the rest'a us then get the hell out of Loriene"- some biggot *Jon* cough cough